THE DREAM IN ACTION

Ryan, for me reflection is a way for me to say that I don't know, that I must observe to see the way that I think, so reflection is highly active especially as one of the most powerful actions we can perform which is silence. Sleep is known to be a very active state of being, much happens in our sleeping hours that we assume is rest, and for this one simply as to type in the phrase "The Mystery of Sleep" to get a sense of the tremendous amount of information that pertains to this area of our lives.

Yet cutting through the silence means that we really get to think about what it is we think or as Jiddu Krishnamurti reflects so beautifully, "the observer is the observed", which in itself is such an incredible statement if we understand what it means to study our own life actions, without narcissism or self-absorption but simply as a fact. So what I write here I will reflect on and yet also am reflecting upon.

To sit a third of our lives, to stand a third of our lives and to lie down for a third of our lives is simply an ancient prescription, but the ancients never lived in a world as fast as our own and those that prayed to the sun lived by the way of superstition and not science, but now the science of life is ripening, it would be great to take advantage of discovering fact. Today I reflect to shed the skin of superstition, tomorrow I will reflect because I have found a way of entering into the body of science. :-)

Ultimately I do love your phrase "Dream in Action", for here we do share a common spirit, and in any case whatever I end up writing is usually more to the credit of whatever it is I am responding to - for the greater feel I get for intelligence, the more marvelous is the weightless wit of my soul. It takes two to tango.

IMHO It is our heaviness which is our problem not our actions, in this regard take a leaf from Usain Bolt, who is the fastest man in the world not simply because of the extend of his stride, but in the mastery of his relaxation. This is the paradox I reflect on that the opposite of active is not inactive but proactive. Again another superb line from the mind of Jiddu Krishnamurti is where he suggests "a confident man is a dead human being", the paradox here is again profound but only if we choose the difficulty to discover what it means to be most alive.

[Em]

I view your title "Getting There" as "FLOW" as researched by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi but I refrain to changing it meaning form "Getting There" to "Being There" because I personally found Peter Seller's movie of the same name is so profound about how we perceive brand and success, especially in rarefied atmosphere when we "get there" and, where the whole show can become so big, that we become engulfed in the magnitude of what ever success we could possibly wish for. This is not about being careful about what you wish for, but how we may adjust to surprising change in scope and scale should our own dream begin to take on a life of its own.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_There

I certainly think Calvin Coolidge's remarks are worthy because when flow merges with value creation, we add something special to society that raises the bar on the quality of life. Yet the act of "getting there" isn't necessarily quality of life, but to enjoy the journey. Here I means where touch merges with tenacity, i.e. soft with hard, gentle with hard i.e. those life paradoxes that test consequence and reality and which can themselves turn conventional wisdom on its head.

This is why I love to reflect but reflection in absence of action is of course that nasty "M" word that men engage at life's most primal depths and touch should never be a lonely act :-) That is why touch for me is an important accompaniment of tenacity, because it takes us from the primal to the magnificent, from the wild beast to the virtuous person who has found a great order in life. Reflection of course can motivate us but to be in "flow" with life, we are also reaching for Socrates great refrain "Know Thy Self" - the problem with inspiration and motivation is when it is becomes shadow rather than when it becomes light.

Touch therefore the way I describe it in terms of tenacity is that "light" or in other words the energy that tenacity then engenders here is an energy that creates more energy. When our energy creates more energy, that is when I know that is the point we are most in flow and in touch with the very DNA of life, then our tenacity can be woven into a great tapestry and our weave then is that word "THERE" that you chose to close your own reflection with. "THERE" is IMHO simply a "HERE" that is lead with the T of our own TRUTH.

[Em]

Em-

I LOVE this from your comment, "when flow merges with value creation, we add
something special to society that raises the bar on the quality of life."

Regarding reflection, I really think that reflection on the past is 'most'
worthwhile when it can improve future action.

BTW, definitely the most in thorough blog comment ever. Cheers bud.
-RG

You said it. Keep it up.